 We want to take a moment to say thanks for being our valentine. There's not enough room on a candy heart to express our gratitude to all of you. The year has barely begun and things are already in full swing. Lee and Keith spent a week in Peru. Our parent company helps to promote kids moving their body and eating healthier. The Biking Viking Coffee made its way from Lake Street, Minneapolis, to the fjords of Norway. And even though there is snow on the ground, planting season feels closer when you are drinking our new Pollinator Blend. As always, we are keeping the fun quotient high with lots of events like this weekend's North Star Roller Girls Carnival Bout and the two-day Food & Wine Experience. And at the end of the month we head to MOSES Organic Farming Conference in LaCrosse,Wisconsin. Involvement in our community and in the Fair Trade world keeps our brains buzzing and our collective cups full. We are indeed blessed. Grab a big ol' mug of your fave Peace Coffee and read on...  By Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee Director  It started with a simple idea really: if our goal as fair traders is to benefit farmers, shouldn’t farmers be involved in that conversation? Just over two years ago, we expanded our structure to take what seemed like the next logical step: formally including coffee producers in the structure of our importing cooperative structure, guaranteeing that they have a voice at the table. I was in Peru in January, attending the general meeting of our importing cooperative, Co-op Coffees, visiting with our producer partners at Cenfrocafe, and engaging in rousing and thought-provoking conversations.What does it sound like when coffee producers have a voice at the table? Well, rowdy for one. Pull together representatives from 8 coffee roasters and 12 producer cooperatives and seat them in a room in the middle of summer in Lima: That’s a recipe for long, sweaty meetings and boundless new ideas.  This collaboration has been behind several of our projects this year: Keith’s roasting workshops in Oaxaca and my work in Peru (don’t tell them, but Meagan and Stacy were guinea pigs for Pangoa’s ecotourism project). We anticipate partnering more in the future, both on roasting and quality development workshops and on various income diversification projects. I think I'm also getting used to the idea that if our goal is to continue to evolve the conversation about just what a Fair Trade is, it's not a short sound bite.After several days of meetings in Lima, our group divided: I went north through the Andes to Cenfrocafe and Keith, our head roaster, headed east into the Amazon to visit Pangoa. So often when traveling, I plan for exhaustion in terms of time zones crossed, but Peru is another story: Traveling for untold hours in bus, wobbly truck, or even by airplane. By the time zone map, I'm not far from home when I groggily sit up to wonder, "why so sleepy?" We shaved off a few hours this trip by hopping a plane to Piura, a sparse desert landscape that I don’t expect to see when traveling for coffee. From there, we boarded a bus bound for Jaén, where Cenfrocafe is headquartered and, suddenly, somewhere in the 14 hour drive, we crossed through a curtain of clouds and into the lush forest I think of as coffee country. Read on... (Back to Headlines)   by Andrew Ranallo, Communications Assistant, IATP  Michelle Obama's Let's Move kick-off event (video here if you missed it) was packed to the brim with all the makings of a successful campaign launch: celebrities, excitement and smiling children -- not to mention the First Lady of the United States. The Let's Move website bills the new initiative as "America’s Move to Raise a Healthier Generation of Kids" -- a tall order. And while the fresh excitement over child nutrition and curbing the obesity epidemic is encouraging, it's a complex issue and will require work on many fronts -- not all of which are as obvious as others.For instance, as Andy Fisher writes in the latest Food and Society Fellows digest, states ranking highest for childhood obesity often have the highest rates of hunger. Before encouraging the next generation of kids to eat healthy we have to make sure it’s even accessible to them in the first place. Earlier this year, IATP wrote a report entitled "Healthy Food for All" detailing efforts around the country to bring healthier food into areas with little or no access to the grocery stores many of us take for granted. Still, many children -- especially those in low-income communities -- get much of their nourishment at school. IATP's Local Foods program is working to expand its farm to school efforts to bring fresh local produce into more schools across the state, but Program Director JoAnne Berkenkamp cites funding as a barrier for many schools. As the Child Nutrition Act comes up for reauthorization this year -- an opportunity that comes once every five years -- let's hope the sparkle and excitement of Michelle Obama’s "Let’s Move" kick-off translates into more funding for programs like the National School Lunch Program and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program -- two programs that could help battle obesity and hunger at home and school. Andrew Ranallo is the Communications Assistant at IATP. He is currently hanging out with a dog named Leonidas. (Back to Headlines)   Riding all the way from the fjords of Norway to the heart of Lake Street comes the latest brew from Peace Coffee, Biking Viking Coffee, offered in partnership with Minneapolis' legendary Scandinavian retail institution, Ingebretsen's.Located blocks from Peace Coffee headquarters in Minneapolis, the family-owned Ingebretsen's has been importing and selling Scandinavian foods, handmade crafts, glassware, dishes, clothing, yarn, books, music and gifts from the same location for over 89 years, making it one of the oldest continually operating storefronts in town and a unique connection to a bygone era and a deeply-embedded heritage. But as associated as Ingebretsen's is to a different place and time, they have also proven that they are deeply committed to the here and now of Minneapolis, and Lake Street in particular. For those unfamiliar with Minneapolis, Lake Street is one of its main corridors, and is particularly known as an incubator of immigrant-owned businesses. As a past-president of the Lake Street Council, Julie Ingebretsen played a major role in the bustling corridor’s revitalization from a dilapidated thoroughfare in the mid 1990s to the vibrant and proud destination that it is today. Of course, coffee trees don’t grow in Scandinavia, but their people are some of the most voracious coffee drinkers in the world, with Nordic countries claiming 5 of the top 6 slots in coffee drinking per capita in the world. Wanting to keep her customers caffeinated, Julie was excited to offer them a fresh-roasted, Fair Trade, and Scandinavian-themed coffee from the neighborhood. "I've known and admired Peace Coffee for a long time -- both its product and its way of being in the world -- and hoped we could someday find a way to work together," she said. "Last year the stars aligned and Biking Viking was born. We couldn't be happier with the coffee and the relationship!" Fan us on Facebook & follow us on Twitter |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
